Fortune-Tellers & Tarot Readers Are Taking Over TikTok

By Maggie Mancini

If there’s one thing we love to hate about TikTok, it's the specificity. The ways in which TikTok’s ultra-smart algorithm knows us better than we know ourselves is one of the hallmarks of the app, and why it’s a go-to for Gen Z and Millennials alike. And, if you’re anything like me, you’ve spent a good portion of the last nine months scrolling endlessly on TikTok, through all hours of the night.

While trends come and go on TikTok, one thing remains the same: TikTok knows us. And in between petty drama between rich teenagers and snippets of the Ratatouille musical, it shows us this in a myriad of ways, from singling out content specific to our region to showing edits from television shows while we’re binging them.

So what happens when an app that prides itself on knowing who you are, what you’re interested in, and when you’re interested in it, suddenly starts telling you that you’re about to meet your soulmate?

That’s the situation that I and a few other Temple students have found ourselves in this month, as fall turns to winter and cuffing season begins. Coincidentally, or not, we’re also receiving messages from the universe telling us that abundance is coming.

“It didn’t initially occur to me that I was one of thousands seeing the same TikToks,” said Sandra Levant, a senior tourism and hospitality management student. Levant has been seeing these tarot readings and fortune-tellings on her For You page for the past five weeks and is pretty skeptical.

“The first few came off as scarily accurate in relation to people I’d been thinking about, and it totally made me believe that they were a sign meant for me,” Levant said. “I had also just cleansed my phone of all dating apps when these TikToks started showing up on my For You page, so suddenly seeing videos related to new beginnings, old or new love, or a soulmate that was set to reappear threw me into a total spiral,” she said.

Rebekah Harding, REFINE’s Editor-in-Chief, has also seen more than a few readings show up on her For You page since October.

“My love life has been a mess this semester,” Harding said to me with a laugh. “Right around the time that I was contemplating things, I started seeing way too specific readings pop up on my For You page, and it’s alarming sometimes. It’s like, are you watching me?”

That really is the question here, though. Is the frequency of these tarot readings on our For You pages simply another way in which the TikTok algorithm can latch onto our personalities and life experiences through our data and market that content to us? Is there anything to be made of it, if that is the case? Is it still safe, as many tarot TikTokers say, to take what resonates and leave the rest?

“It’s mind-boggling that one app has had the ability to make thousands if not millions of people question their life choices,” Levant said. “It’s almost fascinating in a way to see some of the tarot card readings on my For You page with millions of likes.”

At the beginning of October, I found myself starting to have a crush on someone, and tarot card TikToks almost immediately began showing up on my For You page after that. Reassurances that love is about to enter my life and that I’m about to receive an offer from someone I share a connection with, are hard messages to resist, especially from someone like me, who has been reading and studying tarot for several years. It’s tough to think that those are really messages and not just the algorithm having too much data on its users.

“I feel like a lot of us downloaded TikTok at the beginning of quarantine, and now that we’re nine or ten months in, the app has enough data on us that we’re actually starting to see extremely specific content targeted to us,” Harding said.

Ultimately, using TikTok as frequently as most Gen Z’ers do requires a certain amount of indifference to the idea of your own data being used to target your app experience, since it has become both a blessing and a point of concern for many users.

As a reader and believer myself, I want to believe that abundance is coming, that love is coming. So the next time you’re scrolling through your For You page and come across a reading, be sure to take what resonates and leave the rest for someone else.